5 Compelling Reasons to Migrate Print to Cloud

Statistics show that cloud-first organizations outnumber on-premises organizations by a ratio of three to one. The cloud-based printing market is steadily growing, with a whopping 73% of organizations looking to accelerate their cloud-first strategy over the next years. Today, 70% of companies host more than half of their workflows in the cloud.

Cloud migration services are not only revolutionizing print. We also benefit from them in everyday ways when we consume content like music, movies, and books. The cloud even backs up our contacts and photos. The same goes for the shared documents and spreadsheets we use at work.

The cloud is becoming the norm in businesses. Organizations host an average of 92% of their IT environment in the cloud.

Needless to say, this digital transformation journey requires companies to be agile in adopting solutions and cloud migration services that make customers' lives more convenient. The same is true for print management.

Businesses increasingly investigate cloud migration services to modernize IT infrastructure and take advantage of a flexible cloud computing environment. Cloud print infrastructure eliminates the need for on-site server facilities and data centers while strengthening companies’ security posture, agility, and IT budget.

If you’re trying to figure out if moving print to the cloud is a good fit for you, allow us to help. In this article, we’ll discuss why moving your print infrastructure is a great IT benefit with all the key reasons to migrate to cloud today.

How Does Cloud Printing Work?

Cloud-based printing in itself is straightforward and efficient.

Cloud print infrastructure stores documents and information in the cloud and sends them to the nearest printer for printout. In fact, you can print from any printer connected to the cloud, like a printer on another floor or building. Ultimately, you can print from anywhere that’s convenient for you.

Cloud printing solutions allow you to queue multiple documents to get printed. This won’t affect the printer’s performance or cause it to hang because the cloud can ‘hold’ large volumes of data and print jobs.

Then, when you are ready, you can head to your printer of choice and confirm your identity via a QR code, password, card, or ID. It depends on your printer model and cloud print app, but the practice is to adopt pull printing where no one else can retrieve your print job for you, making it incredibly secure.

The printer will then process your request/s, all while you stand by the device. This reduces instances of documents getting mixed or forgotten in the print tray.

Do you need specific, product-led reasons for why you should consider connecting your print with the cloud? Check out these tested and true reasons with SAFEQ Cloud as an example.

📖 Read on → Why Move to the Cloud: 11 Reasons to Get Cloud Connected

Why Should Organizations Shift to Cloud-Based Printing?

Utilizing print infrastructure in the cloud comes with many advantages. Here are the top seven benefits of cloud printing—and why you should take a closer look at cloud migration services to migrate your print to the cloud:

1. Reduced Costs

Maintaining print servers costs organizations roughly $4,000 per year. According to our customers, administering a print infrastructure on a traditional server platform costs them hundreds of dollars per printer. Shifting to cloud print infrastructure has allowed them to see significant reductions in their operational and maintenance costs within 12 months.

As businesses grow, so does their printing demand. With cloud-based printing, organizations can save on costs otherwise spent on maintenance, as well as on toner and paper.

Cloud technology reduces printing errors. Printers, therefore, consume less paper and ink that would otherwise go to waste because of forgotten documents left in the tray. Also, fewer instances of reprints occur because of colleagues accidentally getting the wrong print jobs.

On top of that, there’s no need for employees to request individual printers for backup. Most teams with print-heavy requirements typically request personal backup printers in case of office printer breakdown. These costs can add up since individual printers tend to be expensive, not to mention the extra spend on paper and ink.

Cloud print services are subscription-based, so organizations only need to pay based on their consumption. Overall, it’s a smart, cost-effective way for businesses and organizations to manage print requirements long-term.

2. Better Security

One of the overlooked aspects of security and compliance is insecure printing. 61% of large organizations have reportedly experienced at least one data breach due to insecure print practices. Furthermore, 67% of organizations share the concern of hackers gaining access to their IT networks through an unsecured printer device.

The Windows PrintNightmare vulnerability, for instance, exposed a lot of organizations to security risks. It highlighted a major security threat, with printers being a prime target for hackers.

Printing infrastructures on a cloud platform address these concerns by maintaining top-notch security through patches and updates. Not only do cloud-based print service providers constantly monitor their infrastructure, but also have safeguards in place to ensure print security.

📖 Read on → 10 Ways to Maintain a Secure Cloud Print Environment

With cloud-based printing, only the document owner can trigger a print request. Subsequently, only the owner can retrieve the documents physically at their desired print location. As a result, the organization significantly lowers the chances of data breaches due to document leaks.

Here’s a rundown of security mechanisms to expect in the cloud:

Addresses the entire software security lifecycle
End-to-end data encryption, in transit and at rest
Quickly recovers data with high cloud resiliency
Pull printing features and secure print queue(s)
Zero-trust security mechanisms
Protected access procedures (least privilege)
Integration with on-prem and cloud authentication

Best-in-class user protection with identity verification
Complete process compliance with security regulations
Strict logical separation of data
Frequent threat scanning and PEN-testing by your provider

3. No Print Management

Printer-related IT overhead and helpdesk calls often bog down many in-house IT team members. On-site print servers require regular maintenance. On top of that, IT needs to troubleshoot print errors because of print drivers or print queue management. This can be tedious, especially within large organizations.

Print is the last thing any IT leader wants to take care of–and truth be told, you probably wish you could get rid of it altogether. Instead of wasting resources managing print, you and your IT department could be working on more strategic initiatives. If you don't want to be touching this stuff nearly as much as you used to—why are you?

Migrating to a cloud-centric or cloud-enabled print infrastructure removes complexity, reduces the pressure on IT, and lowers support costs. When you move your print management to a secure cloud-based platform, IT can deploy and control the entire infrastructure easily—from anywhere, at any time. You can do everything from a single web-based interface.

Where does the phrase “no print management” come in? The print industry has for a long time been dedicated to delivering presumed-value offerings in the shape of advanced, complex feature sets (I.e., feature-rich solutions). In an effort to bring our attention to real-value solutions, at Y Soft, we’ve introduced the No Print Management concept.

While print management in its practice still exists, also in our cloud offerings, we’re making a deliberate effort to remove the print management work for your IT team. Instead, we’ll do the heavy lifting and let you enjoy a pure cloud printing solution that always works.

The IT department is evolving, and we want our solutions to reflect that change—and provide IT teams with bigger outcomes for less work.

📖 Read on → 8 Indicators that IT Transformation is in Full Swing

4. Business Agility

You can support business agility with a cloud environment. Opening a new office? Set up your infrastructure in minutes. Moving, adding, or changing printers? Update end-users instantly. Migrating your identity management (Azure AD or similar) to the cloud? Integrate print easily.

Your organization can easily facilitate and drive agility with the help of a cloud migration strategy. In-house infrastructures typically necessitate finding a server with particular technical specifications. As the organization grows, it will need to replace the same server because the business will require new specifications.

Cloud-based services automatically adjust server capacity without requiring expensive upgrades for each server.

5. Enhanced User Experience

In-house print solutions typically have limitations, owing to a lack of expertise, focus, or understanding of the options available. With a cloud print infrastructure, users can enjoy the convenience and security of printing with various functionalities. For instance, we ensure users always have the flexibility needed for hybrid or distributed workforces.

Cloud print solutions are made to be brand-agnostic and easy you access with any operating system. Your staff members can use their favorite devices and printers, without getting constrained now or in the future.

Intracoastal Realty, a real estate brokerage in Wilmington, North Carolina, adopted a cloud-first strategy for its print infrastructure. With ten offices and over 600 staff and real estate agents across various locations, they needed a secure, cloud-based solution that would make it easier for staff and agents to manage print requirements.

“In real estate, agents have to move quickly. When it comes to signing contracts, time is of the essence (…) When an agent visits any of our offices, they only see the printers available to them at that location, which makes life much easier for them and doesn’t end up in a call to the helpdesk”, CIO John Schweighardt says.

Introducing the SAFEQ Cloud Print App

If you’re looking for a software service for your printers with all the benefits we’ve shared in this article, SAFEQ Cloud is for you.

At Y Soft, we've built a platform to migrate your print infrastructure to the cloud easily and securely. The platform makes printing simple and automated—so your IT team is free to focus on meaningful work. You can say goodbye to print-related Helpdesk tickets and focus your IT resources on growing your business.

With SAFEQ Cloud, we meet you wherever you are in your cloud journey. You can accelerate your digital transformation with a converged IT infrastructure—at your pace. As you grow and evolve, SAFEQ Cloud is right there with you.

Explore the nooks and crannies of SAFEQ Cloud in the links below.

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FAQs on Cloud Migration Services

Q1) Is Migrating to the Cloud Worth it?

With cost-savings, infrastructure simplification, workload automation, enhanced UX and security, increased business agility, and a reduced workload on your IT department, it is indeed worth it to migrate print to a cloud solution.

Organizations can let go of pesky and expensive hardware, leverage a pay-as-you-go pricing model, make print a utility, and re-focus on business-critical objectives rather than dealing with troubleshooting user issues.

Q2) What are Cloud Migration Services?

Cloud migration is the process of modernizing components in an IT infrastructure, such as applications, data, infrastructure, and security, by moving them to a cloud computing environment. Cloud migration services are the solutions that enable such transitions, often delivered by solution providers through hardware vendors.

Final Points

There are countless reasons to migrate to the cloud; and move print to cloud along with your other IT systems. The best way to determine if a migration is worth it for you is to hear about other businesses' successes.

In this article, we’ve shared the statistics and facts we’ve experienced. Next up is delving into real migration stories and the results they’ve yielded.

Listen to our podcast episode with Joe Saccente, Site IT Services Analyst at Mars Inc. He talks about reasons to migrate to the cloud and how print should be an invisible process that works like a utility. “People just expect it to work, but when it goes down then it’s pandemonium”. With cloud technology, that chaos goes away.

Listen to this 44-minute episode and let it inspire you with the possibilities of letting go of print management.

5 Compelling Reasons to Look Into Cloud Migration Services for Print

How Does Cloud Printing Work?